Letters: Prescription cost was out of line

This is an example of how people are taken advantage of with health care:

I have an 88-year-old relative who has had a few recent medical problems. She was prescribed a generic medication. The prescription was filled at a large grocery chain. I noted that she had been charged $435.10. This prescription typically is about $47 for a month. Assuming this was just a mistake, I called the pharmacy and questioned the price. I was told that it was the correct price and besides her insurance had already paid about $135. I immediately took the medication back and again questioned the price. Finally, the pharmacist did admit that, yes there is a brand of this that is about $47, but we don’t have that in stock. I asked her if she didn’t think that was wrong. That was never answered. I had the pharmacist log in the computer that the medication had been returned.

I asked them to order the more cost-effective medication. I was to pick it up Monday. I was told the computer “kicked it out”. It was then supposed to be in Wednesday. I tried to pick it up but the computer “kicked it out” again. She finally got her medication on Friday. She ended up going a week without medication. The cost was exactly $47. I talked to the assistant manager of the store and informed him of this situation. He said he would talk to the pharmacist. I assumed this would be straightened out.

Three weeks later I had the person check her credit card statement. The $435.10 was never returned. The store claims this is just an oversight. It took me two more trips to get the store to refund the amount.

It took me six trips to resolve the problem. Many people, especially 88-year-old seniors do not have the ability or will to investigate and stand up for themselves. Let alone people that do not have the physical ability to make multiple trips and stand in line to question an overcharge.

We have a situation where a lady was charged $435.10 for a $47 prescription. That would result in a $5,221.20 yearly charge that should have been $564. For many, this would force people to decide between eating or medications.

I suspect there is some sort of loophole that makes this type of charge technically legal. But I am questioning the ethics. Many people, let alone seniors, can’t afford health care as it is. My point is this, look at your bills and question if something doesn’t look right! And be aware, people including seniors are being taken advantage of.

Phillip Bly

Indianapolis

Carson's closing hits family hard

The closing of Carson's is not just the loss of an anchor store for Circle Centre, a corporate partner for Downtown Indy, but the loss of "family" for their associates.

My son, Bryan Hadin, a client of Noble of Indiana, left sheltered employment for his first job in the community when Carson's (originally Parisian) gave him a job on the dock 22 years ago. Throughout his years of employment from the store managers, to division heads to salespersons and dock workers, he was shown nothing but inclusiveness and kindness by his new family. He had to take health leaves many times ... and his job was waiting for him on his return. Just last month when he regretfully took an early retirement, a farewell party greeted him!

Companies with job openings should give these soon-to-be ex-associates their utmost consideration. They desire a helping hand, the kind extended to my son when he became a part of their family. We wish them all our best.

Georgia Buchanan

Indianapolis

Opt-in for sexual health class will hurt teens

In 2014, the Centers for Disease Control said that 17% of girls in Indiana, in grades 9 through 12, reported being raped. Hoosiers led the nation in the sexual assault of young women. The national average was 10.5%. More than half the time, typically, the perpetrator was a family member or intimate partner. (“Sexual assaults are much too common in Indiana,” IndyStar, May 16, 2014.)

It’s not pleasant to know that families themselves are the location and source of a fair proportion of violence against women. Lawmakers may find it upsetting, even, that 40% of Indiana’s high school students are sexually active. But it’s incumbent on legislators to weigh facts when making decisions. Indiana state senators reneged on that responsibility when they caved to concerned evangelicals mobilized by Eric Miller of Advance America and approved Senate Bill 65 to make public school coursework relating to human sexuality dependent on parental “opt-in.”

Opting-in is a much stronger burden on a lesson than opting out. It sets up a default system where kids will only have access to course material if a parent receives, approves, and remembers to fill out and return a form.

In a state Senate committee hearing, Indianapolis pediatrician Mary Ott testified that the Indiana chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics believes the opt-in provision in Senate Bill 65 sets an unacceptable barrier to participation in schools’ health curricula, because under “opt-in” systems, rates of participation drop dramatically—not because parents object to the instruction, necessarily, but because they forget to return the form. Households coping with chaos, substance use, and illiteracy are least likely to return forms, but Dr. Ott suggested that students from families in these circumstances may also be those most in need of health information.

Sadly (and this was not mentioned by Dr. Ott), it’s also likely that a small number of the parents/guardians whose consent would be required are themselves sexually abusing their children. Should a child’s access to sex education depend on the consent of her abuser?

Related question: Should a student depend on Google and peers, or older siblings of peers, for health information? Do lawmakers think that just because kids won’t get information at school, they won’t seek and obtain information of some kind—information which may be substandard or even dangerously wrong?

My teenage daughter, who never likes discussing health education, still had a comment that lawmakers should hear: “If you heard the questions that get asked in health, you would know how much it’s needed.”

Dr. Ott spoke of rural counties in Indiana experiencing high rates of hepatitis C and HIV infection. “We have to talk about sex to talk about abstinence,” she said. “Heartbreak is a new HIV diagnosis in a young person.”

Public schools already must make curricula available for parents to review and are expected to inform parents when instruction will address sensitive topics. As a parent, I receive letters from teachers or social workers describing upcoming units. In our existing system, parents are able to opt children out of instruction.

For adolescents, health education is inextricable from information about sexual development. The opt-in provision in Senate Bill 65 would create administrative, logistical barriers to the delivery of evidence-based information about bodies and relationships. Senate Bill 65 elevates the private right of a concerned parent over other parents’ kids’ ease of access to useful and medically sound information. Adolescents are learning to navigate the world outside their families, and they deserve honest, accurate, and age-appropriate curricula.

Jenny Robinson

Bloomington

Fix roads before expanding bus service

After dodging the horrendous potholes at 22nd and Capitol, I encountered an IndyGo "Red Line Construction Is Coming" sign in front of Methodist Hospital. I find it embarrassing and ridiculous that our Marion County roads are in such utter disrepair. And yet, the City of Indianapolis is planning on using hard-earned taxpayer money to build unnecessary bus kiosks and purchasing expensive rapid transit buses. Instead of this, the city should do what needs to be done now, and invest our taxpayer money in repairing and rebuilding the horrific roads which everyone drives on including the city buses. Fix the roads first.